Vietnamese literature
From: Ngan Dinh <ngandinh@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 26, 2006 11:11 PM
Subject: [Vsg] Vietnamese literature
Dear List,
I am helping set up a college first-year seminar course. The broad theme is to look at the literature of three societies, Russia, Japan and Vietnam, that have undergone rapid and dramatic transitions from very traditional, conservative, almost feudal societies through cataclysmic events (Russian revolution, loss of W.W.II, and the 30 years of war in Vietnam that led to their independence and reunification). We would like to include mostly fiction (it could be novels, short stories, or poems) but also will consider essays, and would like to include a few films, as much for change of pace and another cultural medium. It will not be a full survey of a country's literature--with 3 countries being looked at over 11 or 12 weeks, it is about a month for each country. As with any first-year seminar course, lots and lots of writing.
The ones we have been looking at are three books:
1. The Sorrow of War – a novel, by Bao Ninh
2. Crossing the River – short fiction, by Nguyen Huy Thiep
3. No Man’s Land – a novel, by Duong Thu Huong
In particular, we might be interested in any of the followings by Nguyen Huy Thiep, I have seen them in the bookstores in Vietnam, but not sure which ones have been translated into English: Canh Buom Nau Thuo Ay; 2) Giang Luoi Bat Chim (NXB Hoi Nha Van)
For films, my current thoughts are Thung Lung Hoang Vang (Director Pham Nhue Giang) and maybe The Quiet American (Director Philip Noyce), but not sure about the latter.
I am not in the field, and I have only looked at this literature from a Vietnamese viewpoint. If you are familiar with the topic and can suggest some pieces for Vietnam that is most suitable for American, first-year, liberal arts college students , what would they be? We are mainly interested in the quality of the writing, but also want to capture pieces that are reflective of the "before and after" issues in the country.
Thanks very much.
Ngan Dinh
From: Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
Date: Mar 27, 2006 2:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnamese literature
Two contemporary authors readily available in English that address a
theme of before and after are Le Luu, with A Time Far Past (Thoi Xa
Vang) and Le Minh Khue, in a collection of short stories. Amazon will
give you the citations.
Le Luu begins his war novel with the narrator's marriage at age 12, in
the countryside outside Ha Noi, and continues it through war and into
the post-war. The inclusion of the child marriage stretches his point
about the transformation of Vietnamese society from merely pre-war and
post-war to a larger sense of before and after modernity. As to
literary quality, Le Luu is James Jones to Bao Ninh's Tim O'Brien, an
older, steadier man writing about war rather than about writing. As a
social scientist, you might like it.
Le Minh Khue became an author with the publication of her Distant Stars,
practically reportage about her service as an idealistic Ha Noi girl,
denied an education after her parents perished in the land reform, who
went to work exploding dud bombs and filling in craters on the Trail.
After the story, the Army pulled Khue out of the lines and set her on
the path to being what she is now, a respected and beloved literary
author with mass appeal, working as a book editor at the Writers Union
publishing house, an Alice Walker.
All of Khue's fiction in this sophisticated persona stands in sharp
contrast to what she was in the war. Her stories comment on the loss of
illusions in the post-war era. Teaching her naive story from the heart
of the war with any of her mature work provides a sharp, graspable
contrast between the war and after, in terms both of observable social
reality and art.
Teaching a pair of Khue's stories, including the war story and one
other, works like a charm, with very manageable reading load for a
class. The war story and as many post-war ones as you need are in the
Curbstone collection. The pair I use are in an issue of Viet Nam Forum.
Helpful details are in article about this lesson plan for the first
year of Education About Asia.
I recommend both of those approaches over teaching Thiep or Bao Ninh or
Huong for your purposes. I don't see an easily teachable engagement
with before and after in any of them. Bao Ninh writes about writing.
Huong weaves memory in and out of her present action in a way that is
not a clear-cut statement about before and after. Thiep writes in the
mystical present, when everything happens at once.
Le Minh Khue's stories and Le Luu's novel make a more pedestrian, one
foot after another, distinction between then and now, if that is what
you want to teach. The others, with their complexity on this issue,
might be rich for independent writing assignments.
Dan
From: Hoang Ngo <ngohoang@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 27, 2006 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnamese literature
Hi,
I agree with Dan on using Le Luu and Le Minh Khue over other writers. I also would like to add the two short stories that I think best capture the transition of Vietnam during Doi Moi (Renovation): Nguyen Huy Thiep's "Remembrance of the Countryside" followed by Le Minh Khue's "The Philosophy Professor."
The first story describes the hardship in a village in northern Vietnam after Doi Moi from a perspective of a 17-year-old boy, who daydreams a lot and expresses most of his frustration through his poetry. The story can be found in "Vietnam: A Traveler's Literary Companion" edited by John Balaban and Nguyen Qui Duc (Also this story was made into a movie, directed by Dang Nhat Minh, called "Nostalgia for the Countryside"). Here's a link for a translation of it: http://vietnamuniverse.com/traveling/remembrance_of_the_countryside.html
Upon finishing the first story, what would happen to the boy since he's at the age of entering college? The second story gives an interesting possibility since it's about a 4th-year college student struggling to stay in Hanoi upon graduation: finding a job and a place to stay. She ends up dating her philosophy professor. This story can be found in "Love After War: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam," edited by Wayne Karlin and Ho Anh Thai.
I hope this helps. Good luck.
hoang
From: Matt Steinglass <mattsteinglass@yahoo.com>
Date: Mar 27, 2006 9:44 PM
Subject: RE: [Vsg] Vietnamese literature
Hello Ngan Dinh,
“Dumb Luck” (So Do) by Vu Trong Phung is available in a spiffy translation by Nguyen Nguyet Cam and Peter Zinoman, and is very strong on issues of economic transformation, urbanization and the revolutionization of a feudal society by a modern socioeconomic order. It’s also very funny. And it could be an excellent parallel to a lot of Russian modernization literature.
One example: a fascinating parallel joke between “Dumb Luck” and “The Brothers Karamazov” on the issue of foreignness, fashion, modernity and suicide. Compare Page 1 of Brothers K:
“Fyodor Pavlovich, for instance, started with next to nothing, he was a very small landowner, he ran around having dinner at other men’s tables, he tried to foist himself off as a sponger, and yet at his death he was discovered to have as much as a hundred thousand rubles in hard cash...Precisely how it happened that a girl with a dowry, a beautiful girl too, and moreover one of those pert, intelligent girls not uncommon in this generation but sometimes also to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless ‘runt’, as everyone used to call him, I cannot begin to explain. But then, I once knew a young lady still of the last ‘romantic’ generation who, after several years of enigmatic love for a certain gentleman, whom, by the way, she could have married quite easily at any moment, ended up, after inventing all sorts of insurmountable obstacles, by throwing herself on a stormy night into a rather deep and swift river from a high bank somewhat resembling a cliff, and perished there decidedly by her own caprice, only because she wanted to be like Shakespeare’s Ophelia.”
And Chapter 9 of “Dumb Luck”:
“To the west of Hanoi lies a lake, recently divided into two smaller lakes separated by a single road known as Old Fish Road. The road is famous throughout the country – all twenty million of our compatriots know of it – because it is here that girls from good and not-so-good families go out with young male college students, law students, and students without institutional affiliation. They come to this road night after night to flirt with each other and to transgress the rules of each other’s families. After several months they invariably jump together into one of the lakes. Initially, most people jumped into West Lake, but, because it was very deep, few of those who attempted suicide survived. Hence, people eventually shifted to the more shallow and less dangerous White Bamboo Lake...As a result, White Bamboo Lake became an important setting for those awful tragedies staged regularly in Hanoi during which the evil Vietnamese family conspires to prevent free marriage, free divorce, free remarriage, and so on.”
In general I found Vu Trong Phung reminded me a lot of the Russian ironists – Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov and so on.
Best
From: Ngan Dinh <ngandinh@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 27, 2006 11:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Vietnamese literature
Wow! I have been mesmerizing by the replies, excerpts, and books that you all have mentioned. Thank you all!
Among these “Thoi Xa Vang” (A Time Far Past) and “So Do” (Dumb Luck) are the most wonderful surprises! I did not know that they have been translated into English. I can’t wait to check them out, but I am also nervous, you have the feeling when your favorite book is made into a movie…
Thoi Xa Vang (thanks Dan and Hoang!) is the Vietnamese love story of the century – I never thought, Dan, that you can walk through the time with it. I tend to hold a static image of “A Time With No Choice” with this “A Time Far Past.” My first read of the book was when I was far too young (first year in college). Never catch this “pedestrian” flavor. Time has passed and changed, still the question of love and choice.
“Waiting” by Ha Jin awfully reminded me of Thoi Xa Vang, but in no sense comparable, each is a different, separate pathway.
Thanks Matt for the wonderful recommendation! “So Do” would be an absolute highlight of the course, for its wit and cultural flavors and all that surrounds a country running after a change. Or what you call it modern socioeconomic order. To the extent that this is a first-year course, where our students would soon path ways into different fields, this book would have an intelligent and compassionate mixture of the many things we want them to carry into the years.
Thanks everyone! This conversation alerts me of so many books that are available in English that are beyond my poor knowledge. Please keep recommending the ones you think are worth reading – it has been a joy learning about all this. If someone tells me now, “Manh Trang Cuoi Rung,” or “Chi Pheo,” have been translated into English, I would die!
By the ways, this is one place to find lots of the works (in Vietnamese). Good place to spend a day of free time if one exists:
<http://dactrung.net/default.aspx>
Thanks again!